My Life

When I walk around, people stare at me. It seems like they think that I have some kind of disease and if they smile that they will catch it. I am treated not like a human. People do not respect us. They are scared. I am just a person who has bad luck. I do not take drugs and I do not commit crimes. I am a religious person and obey the laws. I just cannot get a break. I do not have a job but I would like one. I am not lazy. I think that people think that homeless people are lazy. I am not. I have tried to make money by cleaning, taking care of kids, and had a couple of part time jobs but no one is hiring someone with no education. The money they pay can't pay my bills. I lost my home. I am tired of being judged and treated like a disease. I am a person. I live and breathe and eat and need love like everyone else. I do not have many friends but I would like some. I believe in Christ and he loves me. I know that he will not give me more than I can handle, but I am really sad right now. I hope that he hears me and helps me out. I sure do need it.

Anonymous

My Life

I am a forty-three year old woman living in a shelter. I did not imagine that my life would have turned out like this. I had dreams and ambitions when I was little but life sometimes throws us obstacles, and we have to rethink our plans. I know that I am never going to be rich like I had dreamed of as a little girl. My dreams are simpler now. I just want a roof over my head, food on the table, and some heat in the winter. I need a job but no one wants to hire a homeless person. How do they expect us to find a house when we cannot get a job and cannot get any money. I pray that things are going to get better, but they seem to be getting worse. I am depressed but have faith in God that things will get better. He knows best.

Anonymous

America Today

I am now living in a homeless shelter. I am writing on the status of my personal financial situation and the election of our current and upcoming president. I am an African American female. I was so excited to be living in the era of the election of our first African American president. President Obama gave us so much hope in terms of a new America and we look forward to it.

I am writing to let the president know that I have been watching what he has been doing to make our unemployment situation better. My local nightly news says that the unemployment rate has now risen. I personally am doing worse due to the fact that I am now unemployed for the third year. I was employed when the president was elected. I am worse off now in each and every segment of my financial life. I am trying to start over, it will be a long and low climb uphill toward something that I can recognize as I remember my life before the president was elected. I will have to ponder my decision carefully when our next presidential election comes around again. I won't take my privilege to vote for granted if I want my voice to be heard politically.

Author: Angela

America Today

We live in America--the land of opportunity, the land of the free--the land where prejudices and discrimination are "discouraged" while corporate America judges hopeful candidates by online applications, government officials view citizens not as individuals but as potential votes, and people continue to base assumptions on initial, visual impressions.

Thou shall not judge, at least that is what most religions preach; yet, people are continually discriminated against by their level of, or lack of, education and professional experience, their social class, their skin color, their nationality, and their age. Not only do prejudices continue to exist in America today, but prejudices have expanded to general characteristics--too fat, too skinny, too dumb, too smart, too against traditional societal norms.

Some may argue that discrimination has been diminished; there are laws that are supposedly enforced that allow each citizen an equal opportunity to pursue their dreams. However, the prejudices of the past that have historically condemned both men and women to lives of impoverishment have not ceased to exist; rather, like our times, discrimination and prejudices has merely evolved into a modern, high-tech level.

It is no longer the color of one's skin or one's religion that solely dictates discrimination. It exceeds far beyond initial first impressions or generational worldviews. Prejudice and discrimination still begins at the surface, the judge's eyes, but it moves beyond anything that we can control. The hatred erodes the purest souls for the persecuted cannot dictate fate--their social class, their nationality, their parents, and their lack of high connections in the workforce or on social networking sites prevent them from living up to their potential. These things that one cannot control, these circumstances that we often wish to change but are powerless in escaping, affects the entire being of the individual.

Can we ever move beyond prejudging people on first impressions and generational assumptions? Will we, as a nation and as individuals, ever succeed in learning about the individual before we express our biases? What happened in getting to know your neighbor, your community, your peers, and your fellow human beings? What happened to our humanity?

The state of our country--our world--lies in the hands of our young, but what are the youths of today, the leaders of tomorrow, learning from the world? We need to stand strong, as community members and as compassionate citizens, and support our neighbors. We need to take the time to discover the ugly truths and wonderful beauties that lie within our neighbor's souls. We need to change the ways of the world, one soul at a time, in order to protect not only our future as a nation but to also preserve our humanity.

Amy Jones

Memorial Day

I was taught that it is an honorable thing to serve in the service. I was also taught not very many things are worth going to war for. When my Cherokee great-grandma told me if your livelihood is threatened, it is a reason to go to war. This is the same woman who cried when we went to war because she thought that her sons would soon die for a cause not their own.

My uncle was a cook in the service, and my brother was a Green Beret and worked in communications during the Vietnam War. He now has Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and is an alcoholic. Why? The cause was not his own.

He also sings, plays his guitar, and laughs. He is supportive to me and others who struggle. He is supportive of our causes. He has learned to get help if he gets too down and tells us to do the same. This is his cause.

My brother was in the Korean War. He found good prices on goods in the foreign community, learned to eat with chopsticks, and has learned to make a mean stir fry and excellent rice. He showed me how to make the best of the worst situations.

I have yet to get with it and spread the word on supporting the veterans here and everywhere. I'm telling people now, and I am remembering them too. I would like to honor the veterans and the families with a song that I am co-writing. We need to spread the word and support.

Author: T

In the News

My feelings about the death of Bin Laden is not so much an American or patriotic issue but a human issue. It's always bad when human life is lost, but I also believe that justice should prevail and everyone should be accountable for their deeds. I'm not sad over Bin Laden's death and I am not rejoicing. I am satisfied that justice prevailed because he reaped what he sowed. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Author: "T"

About Me

Being in a shelter is not where I had meant to be. Most people talk about being in charge of one's life. I thought that I was in charge of my life. I pay my bills, I follow the rules, and I volunteer my time in my community. Yet, here I am in the shelter; this is not where I am meant to be.

My mother taught me what was right and wrong and to follow the golden rule. I did those things change for me? How am I here?

Why am I invisible? Why do people shy away from me on the street? Why do people sneer? This is not how I treat people, so why are they mean to me?

My voice is ignored in the justice system, ignored in my community, ignored in my family. My talents are squeezed away from me; I hate who I am and where I am. Yet, I go on. My plans have changed. My most important plan is to be a role model for future generations, but I can't when I am here. It is not where I am meant to be.

Author: Anonymous

About Me

Me? I don't really know where to start. My birthday is in December and I am 23 years of age. I don't have kids and never been married. I am a preachers daughter, I have a mom, and I have 2 older sisters and one older brother. Even though I don't have kids, I love them.

My favorite food is fish. "Tilapia" fish. Actually, I also like romantic movies, too. My favorite movies is Donnie Brasco and Never Too Big.

Being here is like a second chance to me. My goals in life is to finish school and get my GED. I want to be a meteorologist--science, and chemistry. I was cool at first. I went to school for a while and wanted to be in criminal justice. I really want to better myself and get me a nice apartment and do right by myself and others. I go to church every Sunday and bible school every Friday. I do believe in God. I believe that God wouldn't give me nothing that I can't handle...or even place me in a predicament that I can't get out of. I am a strong woman. I can't find a job but I want to get a job. Any kind of job is cool with me. I can adjust. I just need a job.

Author: Marie

About Me

My name is Pauline and my birthday is in February. I have a brown color shade of skin. I am short. I have dark eyes. I am in need of housing. I used to live in apt. housing for sick but now I am trying to get forms for homeless housing certificate before I can move in my own apt. and I will be living in the area soon after the form is finished. Then I can move out of here.

Author: Pauline

Change

Why does change have to be so hard? Is it because we worry about the consequences that will follow it? You never know until you try. I believe we as people rounded this land by taking a risk and that risk is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Overall, I think that change is good.

There is a new era of life where we want to do something but knows that it is not benefiting us one bit. Society today is leaning on technology to help us answer the problems that we started. We need to leave the unknown where it is at. The world today has issues far beyond our meaning. We made choices but we won't deal with the consequences.

Here is my big and great change called "eternal life." The son of God made it possible. I feel Bin Laden's death doesn't make a difference for me. I have to think about me and God. We are not God. We as a whole will soon come to a change or a conclusion. People here died for the belief in finding something maybe truth but nothing will change unless we do something...

Author: Tia

Engaged in Today

An Autumn Leaf

Red

Perfect

Earthbound

It is dizzily spinning

dropping in water

leaves in its wake a trace of tomorrow

Little leaflet, five points

it lies against the brown, still earth

fingers against the muddy water

it lies...

like an outstretched hand ready for an embrace

Within moments

it gets lost in the land

like an illusion

it disappears

Awake

Awake

Autumn is near

Revolution is here

Author: Anonymous

Spring & Community

Hello World!

Spring? I think nature...stuff starts growing. We can eat food that was grown locally and in Kentucky, spring is beautiful! The trees are in bloom and everyone's at the parks.

Community is a context and a psychological process. What does spring mean for the psych process? new beginnings, maybe...

Depending on your sense of community, spring time happiness may make you burrow deeper into self-satisfaction, etc. For others, and myself, I hope the content and inspired feelings of spring leads us to embrace a new sense of community. Love thy neighbor, even the ones in OTR! Who are your neighbors? I hope that beauty of spring can remind me that I have neighbors all around the world. Maybe spring can help us remember to love others as we love ourselves, extend helping hands, etc...

Spring means new things, especially newborn babies everywhere! I was listening to NPR once and they were talking about ladies who're complete strangers talk as though they known each other for years. Babies are the source of conversation. They inspire hope, love and the abandonment of the walls to which we typically cling--we're thrown walls around ourselves to stay tough, to stay uninvolved, to keep from feeling guilty. Maybe spring can remind us how arbitrary and artificial many of those walls are....

The community is in our bones...deep in KY, mountains sleep, opening an eye every so often to gaze at the hardworking and struggling coal miners...sleepy dew, bright greens, this is the spirituality of my ancestors. I hope that an instinctual desire to do something with it will be done.

Author: Jeanine

Don't Become Homeless

My name is Brenda and I am homeless. Right now, I am living at the shelter downtown Cincinnati. Life is more than being homeless. There is a whole life outside the shelter. I say to the public never do drugs, maintain a job, respect people around you, stay out of trouble, take care of your family, and enjoy life because it's too short and you never know what God may have in store for you.

Be the best you can be in the world. Be somebody. Live your dreams and never give up because we are all God's children and everyone deserves a second chance in life. So make your parents and your friends proud of you. Everyone makes mistakes in their life and they are to be corrected. God bless you always.

Author: Brenda

Woman to Woman: Advice on Being Homeless

Homelessness can happen to anyone. The test is how you deal with this unexpected life crisis. I am sure that there are books on how to survive this event, and that there are success stories to let you know that there is a rainbow at the end of the tunnel. Going through this tunnel, I need support. I am not through it yet, but I will be.

There are some rules that you should know when you are homeless:

1. Let it go! Don't worry, you are not the first homeless person
2. If you are shy, get over it. Learn to share your feelings with each other
3. Find an art teacher. Take your mind off of things
4. It is OK to cry
5. Keep a journal and write, write, write!

And seek your higher power and thank him for your situation and ask him for guidance. Celebrate life and the successes with your new friends.

Author: Edith

The Times of Me

Let's see, where do I start? I woke up this morning to a cold, hard floor, shivered, and realized that I was not where my dreams imagined me to be. At the shelter, with forty other women living as poorly as I am, some old, some pregnant, some mentally unstable to live alone, and some just too damn young.

I walked around with a few ladies that I know, just walking along, looking for some fun. Not too long after we met up with this crazy, funny white boy I know--yeah, I love you Moso So. The ladies and I split up, and I walked to the library and was thinking about life. Now, I'm weird, or some would say strange, because I'll admit it--I messed up somewhere but who knows how many blunts or gravities ago. Anyway, I'm on the internet and I see that the world is supposed to end--yeah, I know, right? On December 12, 2012 the world ends. Thank God that the Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn should be out by then..ha! Hey, Stephenie Meyer, just in case my message gets read, I've read them all about six times each and Go Team Edward! Anyway...

I lived in this city forever--born, raised, abandoned by suicide, and ill-fated by my people. Government "helps" us...yeah...right. Some say we're given everything here food, water, shelter, clothing, yeah...right. Got to earn it, one way or another.

I remember living in Pennsylvania for a minute and how wonderful spring was with all the flowers and hiking. It was just amazing. It was awesome because me and my friends would go camping and drinking and we'd jump in the cool water at midnight. Love was awesome there too, laying in the bed of my truck watching the stars making love. Now, back in the city, we have beautiful girls but not much privacy. Is love all good? I am stressing that. Down here, in the city, there might be two crack heads in an alley walking hand in hand. Love? These are the zombies that walk around, trying to lure and confuse you, they are trying to give you something that you have never had. Yeah...right.

Author: LaShae

Life Through My Eyes

The way that I look at my community is everyone's different people. Look at my situation as a surprise. People judge my outer self, but they don't know what my inner self is like. I'm one individual who struggled their whole life to live in chaos mixed with structure.

We live in a society that judges your outer looks and can't accept who you really are supposed to be. We have walked many walks of faith. I say fear God not life because life will soon end. Soon and forever. Why does life as we know it ends? Because of difficulties that come with our choices? Understand with choices comes consequences. We have to learn and grow with change. I've learned and made mistakes in my past, and it was easy to make mistakes. But through it all, I have joy in my heart to keep moving on and let nothing stand in my way.

Words...people gladly humiliate me. What I have learned is that I need to become humble, to remove the junk from my life, and to hold my spirits and head up high.

Author: "Tasha"

Attention World...

ATTENTION WORLD [WHITE SUBURBAN YUPPIE]

If you are comfortable, you are probably wrong. If you think that you've worked hard to earn what you got YOU ARE PROBABLY WRONG.

YOU WERE BORN WITH IT

White Privilege

Here is the truth. We should all be ashamed. We have benefited from the degradation and subjugation of our fellow HUMAN BEINGS

Our neighbors are cozy, but we shouldn't be able to sleep at night. Just a few blocks, miles, continents away PEOPLE are living in filth, in fear. So we live with the belief that our advantageous position in society is natural or the result of our own work, the color or our SKIN, our gender, or our class.

WAKE UP!!!

Author: Anonymous

Aspirations

Homeless was something that I never aspired to be
Never knew that it would or could ever happen to me
My mom had money
So did my dad
Anything I wanted
Believe me I had

I finished school
No Felonies
Followed the Rules
But life dealt me a hand
That I was ill equipped to deal with

So I push through the best you know how
And you learn from your experience
Because that is what homelesssness is for me
What I have to believe
Is that this is just an experience
--Learn as you go.

I Am...Homeless

H is for homeless, that is what I am today
O is for Oooh no, how did I get this way?
M is for the misery that I am going through
E is for the energy that I need to see this through
L is for Lisa, oh yes, that's my name
E is for the effort that it takes to win this game
S is for sadness that I really can't express
S is for sooo, Lisa, please snap out of it! For this is only a test!

Author: Lisa

Our Community: Spring

Spring means a change in a season
Spring means colors, vibrant colors
Spring means days are longer
Spring means new hope
Spring means no more excuses not to exercise
Spring means we are open to communication, commitment, community
Spring means hopes of seeing pictures of the newest members of the writing class

Author: Anonymous

Woman to Woman: Advice on Being Homeless

I would like to give advice to the women who are raising children and trying to have a home to keep on trying. It is not an easy job to raise a family, to provide food for your children to eat, place clothes on their backs, and pay for their basic education. It seems that we can't pay for these basic human needs and it is impossible to give them things that they want like toys and fun adventures. Even though we want to give them the best of us, our time, love, patience, and perseverance, we feel cheated because it takes over our dreams of being career minded, and it makes us the bad guys in our families. To me, being a mom was the best job that I had and the most enjoyable, memorable, and rewarding. It brought me structure and accountability so I strived to be the best that I could and wanted to be. Setting good examples, being loving and kind to them, being there for them, comforting them, teaching them, and being a family with them. We are a family and can strengthen each other and help one another and be ourselves together. It was the most rewarding with my friends and family and church...because it takes a village to raise a family and doing it gave me my community.

Author: Jeanine

Over-the-Rhine

Journey Across America

Journey across America
To see how others live
How cutlure developed into the city
How the spread of wealth got into our lives

Journey across America
Allow me to understand the yearning of eternal litght
To see that we are the same equally for life
We share the music and the styles to shape who we are--different yet the same

Journey across America
Saying goodbye to a friend I had just met
She leaves with a warm smile on her face, tears on her brow
In this new place, she can now call home when she closes her eyes
Stay true to who you are so they can see you grow and glow

Author: Glenda

Goals: A Poetic Journey

How many of us have goals, how many of us fall victim to them. How many hate them, to hope so greatly for someone to loathe who possesses your goals, to have an inner, bright light go dim. How many children today are faced with someone else’s goal, how many people have no control over their goals, raise your hand high in the sky if you would sell your soul to the devil to achieve your goals, much more, many more souls.

Who has the envy at one who has millions of dollars; check the news, its everywhere these days. The Jekylls and the Hydes are in the streets watching and preying on the weak just to pay their ways.

Who can say they know of no one who has done any evil for the gain of their own goal—to cheat, to lie, to steal, or to kill for their fantasy goals, to have their futures be told.

Society tells us that having goals drives ambition, to be all that you can be, but when you fail, they desert you and call you a failure for failing.

As your goal slowly fades, further and further away, the more your mind that so called ambitions begins the stalling.

Now look into the eyes of the people who society call the failures--what has the goals given to them done, watch as the next father or mother force their goals onto their unsuspecting daughter or son. A goal of any type of monetary gain is that of hate because a wise man once said that money is the root of all evils…isn’t it, so go ahead, teach your son or daughter to be another trapped by their own successes, to work for a tip. A man told me that money isn’t everything but it sure makes life comfortable! What kind of goal is comfortable? No! Your goal has to be more than comfortable—it has to be lavish…tell me now what’s your goals…oh! I detest goals, what happened to good, old-fashioned times of just believing that something good would come in life, right? A young lion and his friends once sang a song of Hakuna Matata. No worries, right? Yeah…that’s so right.

Author: LaShae

Our Community

This community can only be summed up in one word—Death. The wicked come here to sell their remedy, the damned are forced to live together, and the rats walk the night leaving zombies to spread. The government is set on keeping the poverty level where it’s at and they only want to cover the truth. Like the last breath of a dying animal, we struggle to breathe this polluted oxygen. As the days grow shorter to mankinds’ demise, the life of the damned will already have suppressed by the end of time. We are like a rose so sweet on the pedals but slide your finders down the stem and it will make you bleed. To be rid of this shitty-ass city, the people cry for help and no one listens; the rich cry for stupid taxpayer spending. This is the city where riots of hate crimes shut down the city. This is a city where you can sit on your porch and get killed. This is a city where we’re number one in child abuse related deaths. This is the city who lost two Superbowls. This is the home of the Reds, this is where celebrities want to come to….this is the city I love.

Author: LaShae

Photography Project

Photo Location: Downtown Cincinnati
Photographer: Unknown
Date: September 2010

Photography Project

This picture was taken by one of the lovely ladies in our writing group; the bi-annual photography project encourages women to visually define community with disposable cameras. We later develop the photos and use these images as writing prompts in future writing sessions.

Let Our Voices be Heard

After weeks of discussing possible public forums to showcase the women’s writings, the women agreed that creating a blog was the best solution. The women were excited about the possibility of becoming “official” authors; they had hoped that this project would dispel the often negative public opinions about homelessness and would inspire other homeless individuals to become active in their community.

The women envision that the blog will serve as a resource for the homeless community. They want to demonstrate to others that although living in a shelter is hard and, at times, unbearable, that it is possible to not only survive shelter life but it is also possible to succeed; finding permanent housing may prove to be a difficult task, but it is an achievable goal. They want to share their lived experiences with other homeless individuals and hope that writing about their lives will help educate other homeless individuals how to survive on the streets and life in the shelter. In all, they want their writing and their shelter experience to have meaning.

The women expressed that though they are homeless, they, too, have dreams and desires. Like everyone else, they want a safe, clean place to live—a place where they can raise their families without fear; a place where there is food in the refrigerator and a stove to prepare balanced meals; a place that has a bed to place their weary heads; a place where they can call home.

They wanted to inform the public that being homeless is not a disease. It can happen to anyone at anytime. Homelessness does not discriminate.

The women often say that homelessness is only a paycheck away. They discuss, in detail, that people often think that it is the fault of the individual for losing their homes. People often believe that the homeless population consists solely of people who drink and use drugs, which, they admit, at times are true. However, they wish to state that there are many individuals who are homeless at no fault of their own. In these hard economic times, people lose their jobs; landlords are constantly increasing rents without considering the fact that minimum wage remains the same. People are mentally ill and are unable to care for themselves, or people become physically ill and fall behind on their bills. The elderly are being kicked out of their houses by family members who “grow tired of the burden.”

The women of the shelter want the public to know that they are real people with real emotions and not just a “social problem without a face.” They want to be acknowledged as human beings instead of a cold, hard statistic. They want their concerns addressed; they want their communities saved; they want their voices heard.

The women fear that people will dismiss their writings because “no one wants to read about homeless people.” Yet, I argue, that everyone has a unique story to share and that the only way that we can break stereotypes is to tell their stories. The women agreed to put their fears aside, believing that the only way to break stereotypes is to expose the truth. We are hopeful that the public will embrace their stories and that other groups will join us on our writing journey. It only takes a few, strong people to stand up for what they believe in and to make a difference in the world.

Project Introduction

We are a small group of students who volunteer as writing instructors in a community literacy project at a local homeless shelter. It is our hope that the project will expose unequal social powers, break stereotypes, and create support systems for the homeless community. This forum is a place to discuss ethical issues that may arise in service learning projects, exchange composition/project ideas, showcase participants' writings, talk about community concerns, and share lived experiences pertaining to the projects and the participating community itself. We invite service learning project participants to share their experiences and writings. Please send inquiries to seekingshelterjones2011@gmail.com.